Jose Joaquin Bolaños Geisha

Jose Joaquin Bolaños appears to be a salt-of-the-earth, traditional Colombian coffee producer. But when you get to know him, it’s clear he’s not so traditional. When he replanted his farm in 2017, he didn’t go for the expected Castillo, Caturra, Pink Bourbon varieties. Instead, he decided to go against the grain and plant Geisha and Bourbon.

Twenty years ago, the only place to find the Geisha variety was in a tiny subregion in western Panama. Fast forward and Geisha is grown in every coffee-producing country. Between 2010-2015, seeds of Geisha (mostly from Panama) started finding their way to nurseries worldwide and, by 2015, many had planted Geisha. I have tasted many of these Geishas from numerous different countries and my experiences have been mixed. In some cases, there is a clear Geisha profile (but with a local twist), and in other cases the coffee tastes nice and clean, with only a fraction of the qualities that have made Geisha famous.

Colombia has more small producers than any other country in the world. These small producers are often remote and have limited access to information. When word of Geisha’s high prices reached some of these producers, they naturally wanted to find seeds to plant their own. Some were able to find seeds of genuine Geishas, some found seeds of similar varieties, and some were duped and received random seeds.

Jose Joaquín Bolaños is from San Agustin in the south of the province of Huila in Colombia. He planted his Geisha trees in 2017. We started working with Jose Joaquin in 2020 and in 2023, I was able to arrange a Geisha workshop by rockstar Panama producer Ratibor Hartmann. We did the workshop at Jose Joaquin’s farm and Ratibor gave Jose Joaquin tons of feedback on how to improve quality - focusing first on the plant, its nutrition and growing conditions and also on specific details of the processing. This coffee is the first lot that has Ratibor’s signature all over it. Since Ratibor’s visit, Jose Joaquín made tons of changes. He increased the fertilization frequency from 3/year to 6/year, allowing the delicate Geisha roots to have more frequent (and less quantity) of nutrition. He increased the shade in his farm (this is still in process) and has now implemented a more robust compost program to provide the trees with organic fertilizer and microorganisms that help the biodiversity and overall health of the trees. Finally, he has decreased the planting density, by removing older trees that were invading on the nutrients for healthier trees. The result of all this work has been very rewarding for Jose Joaquín, as the coffee is clearly a notch better in the cup, resulting in higher sweetness, more clarity and complexity.